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David Zhang
TBA
Education
Research assistant, part-time PhD, Bioinformatics
University College London
London, UK
Present - 2017
- Thesis: Using transcriptomics to improve the diagnosis rate of rare disease patients.
- Ultimately, the goal of my PhD is to develop and apply statisical methods and software that improve the genetic diagnosis rate using RNA-sequencing. This involves detection of aberrant RNA-level events when complemented with, DNA sequencing help to resolve variants of unknown significance.
MSc, Neuroscience
University College London
London, UK
2016 - 2015
- Thesis: The role of mitochondrial dysfunction in Xerodoma pigmentosum
- Grade: Merit (68%)
- Awarded post-graduate support scheme bursary (£10,000)
BSc, Biomedical science
University College London
London, UK
2015 - 2012
- Thesis:
- Grade: 2:1 (69%)
H.S.
Queen Elizabeth’s School
Barnet, UK
2012 - 2007
- Grade: Maths (A*), Biology (A*), Chemistry (A*), Sociology (A).
Research Experience
Honorary Researcher (2 months)
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Remote
2020
- In collaboration with Leonardo Collado-Torres, we used the recount3 dataset and LIBD samples to study the effect of complex splicing in individuals with neurological disease.
Research Technician
University College London
London, UK
2017 - 2016
- Used R and bash to investigate the effect of genetic variation on the age of onset of dementia and cognition within Down syndrome patients.
Industry Experience
Bioinformatician internship (3 months)
Verge Genomics
Remote
2020
- Detection of aberrant splicing events in complex disease patients.
- Using AWS infrastructure
Software & programming
Bioconductor packages
N/A
N/A
Present - 2020
Chess analysis
N/A
N/A
2021
- Applying python and data science principles through the analysis of chess data.
Kaggle town
N/A
N/A
2020
- Organised club to study python and machine learning through kaggle problems.
Data wrangling
Neuroimmunology & CSF Laboratory, NHS
London, UK
2018 - 2016
- Developer and maintainer of data wrangling pipelines that improved the efficiency and standardisation of monthly financial reports.
Teaching Experience
Developing Bioconductor Packages
University College London
Virtual Event
2020
Unit testing using testthat edition 3
rstats club
Virtual Event
2020
- Talk regarding unit testing fundamentals, the importance of testing and new features released in the R package testthat edition 3.
R fundamentals
Clinician Coders
London, UK
2020 - 2018
- Developed materials and lead facilitator for teaching R to clinicians.
RNA-sequencing for diagnostics
Kings College London
London, UK
2020 - 2017
- Invited lecturer to graduate level students on how transcriptomics can be applied in the diagnostic pipeline.
Selected Publications
Megadepth: efficient coverage quantification for BigWigs and BAMs
Bioinformatics
N/A
2020
- Authored with Richard Single, Vanja Paunic, Mark Albrecht, and Martin Maiers.